The Man Who Lost Himself

Just sometime back saw another - and this one is almost a remake of that (though the story credit-wise these are different). All these are different variants of Prisoner of Zenda etc - where a Hero replaces his look-alike dissolute and gets the fiancee/ wife fall in love with him.

It was The Masquerader (1933) as most of the reviewers are equating it to Dave - the Dave is very highly influenced by - not this but the Masquerader - there too the delinquent person was an ex-great Political leader. Comparing the casts, naturally Ahrne and Colman, both are great, and fitted the role almost perfectly, may be Colman got a slight edge. But on female lead, the estranged wife Kay balanced the edge against Elissa Landi.

But there the comparion ends - Sakall as teh confidante doesn't come anywhere in portraying what Hobbes did in masquerader.

And compared to that story - or should I say execution ? Well, this was atrocious. TM's basic advantage was the believable meeting as well as twin-image - the good man was first cousin of the bad-politician, estranged for long (the aunt, probably after an undesirable marriage, not clarified, had skipped the country). Hobebs however could guess it soon, and that was one of the reason for him to encourage the masquerade, and also keep the, now again in love, wife away from the husband. here somehow it looked too concocted act. Only saving grace, for me, were the two leads, both of whom are in my 'like' group. But after all, they can't give too much of a push, can they ?

Brian Aherne has come from Puerto Rico for an important deal. But his partner has betrayed him and he's stuck. He decides to drink a lot. Semi-sozzled, he meets himself. That is, he meets his exact double, who has been spending time in the loony bin. They get further drunk, the second Aherne sends the first back to his house, and quickly dies in a traffic accident. But the people in the house think he's the second Brian Aherne, a wealthy man who owns a department store, and that the dead man is the first Aherne. As he wanders befuddled through this new life, he learns about his estranged wife, Kay Francis, his mistress, Dorothy Tree, and the man who has been stealing money from his department store and now wishes to buy it, Henry Kolker.

It's one of those pixilated comedies in which everything, we expect, will eventually turn out very well for Aherne, not for anything he does, but because the situation demands it. Aherne tries his best, but he never seems to be involved with what's going on -- and why should he? It's not his life -- and director Edward Ludwig seems more interested in making things come out right in 72 minutes than any subtlety in performance or possible subtext, beyond the fact that the rich seem more interested in money than anything else. Still, there's S. Z. Sakall, Henry Stephenson, Sig Ruman, Marc Lawrence, and other old pros who take their time on the screen to make us smile.

The idea is brilliant and perfect as a starter for a brilliant intrigue, whether for a thriller or a screwball comedy. It looks as if both are getting triggered. Brian Aherne comes back to New York a ruined man after a stranded business deal from Puerto Rico, and his business partner down there tells him to swim back home to Puerto Rico. Brian Aherne gets infuriated by his frustration and takes an awful lot of drinks, telling everybody he meets to repeat after him that his colleague Mr. Phillips is a skunk. One of the other guests he meets at the bar happens to look exactly like him, they could be mistaken for each other's doubles, that other man also has something to drown in drinks, so they go celebrating together. That other man never comes back. Brian Aherne is taken for him and brought home to a luxury apartment where he has every difficulty in the world to convince everybody that he is not the right man, and the more he insists, the less he is believed. Then the comedy bolts off tying itself up in knots of inextricable complications, and two women are involved, his wife and his mistress, who only wants to extort her "booby-wooby" for money. Kay Francis is the wife, always excellent, and she eventually finds out that she is a widow, since the real man was lost in an accident at night. In spite of all the complications and muddled up intrigues, something seems to come out right in the end, while the one who really has a hard job to get through is the wonderful old Hungarian butler S. Z. Sakall, crowning the comedy with his constant worries.

"The Man Who Lost Himself" 1941 is a cool little Universal "B" picture and I was lucky enough to buy a nice 16mm original print for my last birthday! Love these little "B" flicks! My release print which was struck in 1947 was from Variety Film Distributors, they had changed the main credits and removed the words "Universal Pictures". Variety Film Distributors was formed in 1938 and was headquartered in New York City on Fifth Avenue. They were the exclusive foreign distributors of both Reliable Pictures Corporation and Majestic Pictures Releases. They had offices in Tokyo, Paris and Calcutta. They were confidential advisers to foreign buyers, South America excluded. They were still in operation in 1951, and the only thing I could find about them was the basic corporate information most of which I have related here. Apparently Universal Pictures still holds the copyright on "The Man Who Lost Himself" so contrary to popular belief it is not in the public domain, even though there is a copy of the entire film on You Tube, also with the Variety Film Distributors main title. About the picture, there is an interesting scene when actor Brian Aherne is sitting at the table in the nightclub with the double of himself, playing both rolls as John Evans and Malcolm Scott. For this scene they used an early "traveling matte" or "Blue Screen" as it was known then by, special effect. When the character on the left side of the table bends down you can see part of the traveling mattes edges it almost looks like a video effect! Last night we screened the print for the second time on the big screen! This picture was excellent! Love S.Z. Sakall - he's always a rip in any picture! Kay Francis was a beautiful woman! Brian Aherne was a top notch fine actor! The plot has been done a few times, once by my good friend and former boss Richard L. Bare and his fine picture "This Side Of The Law" 1950 for Warner Brothers. Of course the sexual innuendos in both films are hilariously bazaar! Think about it, getting to have sex with a woman you have never seen before who thinks you are her husband!? Sounds good to me! At 72 minutes it's a gem of a picture! Love it when she puts her high heel in Aherne's face in the back seat of the car near the end of the picture! Suck it baby! Best of all, here comes my standard comment: There are no woman with colored hair, no actors covered with stupid tattoos, no bad language, no cell phones, I-phones, smart phones, dumb phones, computers, covid-19 masks, ridiculous car chases, dumb teenagers, horrible rock music, rap music, new country music (which is just rock 'n roll) no television sets, sex scenes, people yelling at each other for no reason, and no unnecessary diversity in the cast, unlike movies now, you've got to toss in everything from women from Swahili to LGBTTQQIAA++++! (Whatever that means?) I give it ten stars for that alone! No political correctness in my screening room, no way! Now where did I put that Covid-19 mask? How are we going to eat the bird with a mask on? Happy Thanksgiving 2020!

The beginning of The Man Who Lost Himself is hilarious: Brian Aherne meets his lookalike in a bar and the two Brians share a drink. One of the Brians has just been double-crossed by his work partner, and the other has just escaped from a mental asylum. The next morning, one of the Brians wakes up in a mansion, waited on hand and foot by a valet, S.Z. Sakall, being called the other Brian's name. The morning papers reveal the other Brian (the millionaire) was killed the night before, jumping in front of a subway train, pretending to the pauper. If the real pauper (the one who woke up in the mansion) reveals the mix-up, he'll be accused of murder. But if he stays put, he'll have to impersonate the other Brian with his wife, Kay Francis, his girlfriend, Dorothy Tree, and his friends.

Are you confused yet? Good, because I was enormously confused. The opening scene with Brian playing a drinking game with himself is very funny, but as soon as they swapped, I remained confused until the end. I never did figure out all the twists and turns, but since this is a silly comedy, I suppose it doesn't really matter. I loved Cuddles Sakall, who provided adorable quips every time he opened his mouth. If you liked the madcap Merrily We Live, you'll probably like to see Brian using his comic talents again in this one. And who wouldn't want two Brian Ahernes to look at?